


A Home For a Bunny

by sameuspegasus



Category: How I Met Your Mother, Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Castiel in Alternate Vessels (Supernatural), Crossover, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gen, Ghosts, Kid Castiel (Supernatural), No Incest, Pretend Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:48:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22891969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sameuspegasus/pseuds/sameuspegasus
Summary: There's a ghost in Lily's classroom. Castiel must infiltrate it using his new vessel.In which Flopsy is not a happy bunny, Marshall wants to use his ghost-facing kit, Jimmy's been exploded too many times, and Dean and Sam are not good at pretending to be married.Completely gen. Cross-posted on ff.net under the title The Haunted Classroom
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Jimmy got exploded too many times and when Cas was put back together God (or whoever it was) decided to make things as inconvenient as possible for him.
> 
> This is just a bit of fun with imagining Cas trying to be taken seriously while looking like a five year old. It's obviously not a serious discussion of the implications of angels taking vessels.
> 
> Also, there is no wincest here.

"There's a ghost in my classroom," Lily told her friends.

In the hubbub of McLaren's, no-one heard her.

"I can't believe that guy!" Barney was complaining, "I just about had that chick convinced I was a spy. We're talking _minutes_ of hard work, and he just swoops in and claims to be James Bond. Grrr. No, quiet," Barney held up a hand, "I must plot my revenge."

Nobody was listening to Barney, because no-one ever really listened to Barney. Robin was saying: "… these stupid human interest pieces, this morning I had to interview…"

Lily missed who Robin had interviewed, because Ted was talking over her, enthusing wildly over the foyer or elevator or something of some building somewhere.

"There's a ghost in my classroom," Lily said louder.

"There's a GHOST in your CLASSROOM?" Marshall shouted, jumping up.

Robin laughed. "There's no such thing as ghosts, Lily."

Well, it was alright for Robin to say that. She hadn't felt the temperature of the room drop suddenly. She hadn't seen the door slam or the colouring pencils fly across the room and embed themselves in the wall. It was just lucky it had been after school and all the kids had gone home. Lily took a large gulp of wine.

"Robin's right, Lily. There's no such thing as ghosts," Ted contributed, sounding slightly unsure of himself. Then to Marshall: "Where are you going?"

"I must find my ghost-facing box. Come on, Lily, let's leave these non-believers behind."

"And then, after careful calculation of the probabilities, I'll find every girl in New York he could possibly have sex with and convince them he's an alien who will use them for his experiments if they go with him… and they'll be so grateful they'll all sleep with me…" Barney was saying, but Lily could see his heart wasn't really in it. Out of the corner of his eye, he was watching Robin.

Lily stormed out with Marshall on principle.

Back in the apartment, Marshall excitedly pulled a dented shoebox from under the bed and slammed it on the table. A piece of paper professionally printed in smoky green and grey and black was glued to the lid, declaring it to be a "Ghostfacing Kit". Underneath the words were a skull and crossbones logo and a website address. Marshall tore off the lid, removing a piece of paper from the box and handing it to Lily. "We need to check it's all here before we go to face to ghost. I'll tell you what's in here, you check it off. Flashlight. .. EMF meter… Salt – no, wait, what happened to the salt?"

"Maybe they didn't supply it?" Lily suggested, deciding not to tell her husband about the experimental art project she had embarked upon on the previous Saturday.

"Lighter…" Marshall continued, pulling things out of the box and placing them on the table.

When everything was out of the box and checked off, Lily sat down at the table to read the instructions for facing a ghost.

_Step one: Always thoroughly research your ghost before facing it. Sometimes this can take up to several weeks. If you think the ghost is too dangerous for you, call the professionals (We can be contacted through the website. Fees apply.)_

Well, that was disappointing. Lily had been hoping to deal with the ghost that night. The initial shock was wearing off and she was getting just as excited about it as Marshall was.

"It only threw pencils, right?" Marshall said. "I bet it's lonely. Maybe we should try to talk to it."

"Ooh, I know! Why don't you come pay us a visit tomorrow, the kids would love to see you."

"I can't," Marshall's face dropped, "I'm in meetings all day. It'll have to be Monday."

Lily went to bed feeling better. It was good to know someone believed her. But then, Marshall believed most things.

At four AM, Lily was torn from a slightly confusing dream involving Marshall, Robin, and an extremely large banana, by the shrill and grating ringing of the phone. She slapped Marshall sleepily.

"Get it."

"You get it."

"It's probably Ted."

"I'm asleep."

There was a slight wrestling match. Lily won (Marshall might be a giant, but Lily had distracting girl-bits). Marshall groped for the phone on the bedside table.

"'Lo? Oh, hey Robin." He sat bolt upright. "She'll do it! Wait, we'll both do it! We'll be there in fifteen minutes!"

Marshall hung up the phone and leapt out of bed, flicking the light switch.

Lily blinked in the bright light. "What's going on?"

"We're going to be on TV! Robin's going to interview us about the ghost. Her human interest piece passed out on the couch and they need a replacement."

"Do I have time to get dressed?"

And that was how Lily came to be sitting opposite Robin in the cheap channel 12 studio, wearing her favourite flannel pyjamas and her best boots, talking about the ghost that was haunting her classroom. She kind of wished she'd had time to do her hair, but it wasn't like anyone watched Robin's show anyway.

* * *

On Monday morning, Lily arrived at work early. There was going to be a new arrival in her class, a sudden transfer that had been arranged over the weekend, and she always liked to give new kids a few minutes to find their way around before the class started back up. Also, she needed a few minutes to check the ghost hadn't done any damage over the weekend. It was a good thing she did, too. Flopsy's (Flopsy the third, if she was being honest) cage was wide open and empty, her plastic water bottle cracked on the floor. A small puddle had leaked out and was slowly spreading across the linoleum. She picked up the broken bottle and binned it before soaking up the water, then began her search for the missing animal.

Eventually she found Flopsy under the art station in the corner. The station was a mess, with piles of paper that had been put away tidily on Friday strewn and ripped, splashed with paint from knocked-over pots. A box of crayons had been violently thrown at the wall, leaving coloured trails down it to the pile on the floor. The quivering rabbit was huddled in the corner, where Lily would have to crawl all the way under the desk to get to her.

"It's okay, Flopsy," Lily said, hiking her skirt up slightly and getting down on her knees.

Due to the most unfortunate timing ever, Lily was still crawling under the art station, trying to coax the frightened animal into her arms, when she heard the new boy and his parents arriving at the classroom door.

"I fail to see the humour in the situation, Dean," the first voice was saying peevishly. It was surprisingly gravelly, but undeniably a child, "This is very inconvenient."

"Well, you shouldn't have let Jimmy get blown up again," said a second voice, this one a man, sounding amused and, well, yes, a bit sexy. "Now pretend to be a five-year-old."

"I do not have time for this," the child complained. Oh dear, this one sounded like he was going to be a handful. Well, he couldn't be worse than James. James was pure evil.

"Uh, hi," a third voice said, male again, and this time directed at her.

Lily tugged her skirt down to make sure her underwear weren't showing and wiggled backwards out from under the art station, floppy-eared grey rabbit in tow. She turned around and stopped, momentarily losing the ability to think appropriate kindergarten-classroom thoughts. Oh, what a pity they were together. She wouldn't mind having her way with the tall one, who was every bit as large as Marshall, and a lot more muscular. Or the other one (also large), who had the kind of face people wrote poems about which they never showed Barney ever again. Or both… her eyes glazed over slightly.

"So, do you have a big rabbit problem around here?" The bigger one recalled her to reality.

"Flopsy escaped," Lily told him unnecessarily. "I'm Miss Aldrin. This must be my new student." She smiled at the little boy, who ignored her in favour of continuing some kind of silent argument with his other father.

The big one smiled at her. "I'm Sam McCready. This is my br-husband Dean and our… uh… son, Cas. Sorry, Cas is a little shy around strangers."

Shy was okay. Lily liked the shy ones. She soon got then coming out of their shells, and they were often the nicest, most imaginative ones in the class, even if they started out resenting having to come to school. The blowing up Jimmy comment was a little more worrying, but she wasn't going to get too caught up in it. She had only heard it out of context, after all.

She leant down to speak to Cas. "Hi Cas," she said gently, "I'm your new teacher, Miss Aldrin. This is the class rabbit, Flopsy. Why don't you say hello to her?"

"Hello," said Cas, glancing curiously at the rabbit. Cas was small for his age, with fine bones and big, serious, blue eyes. His straight brown hair was wild, like it hadn't been combed when he got out of bed. Lily guessed that was Sam's job. Judging from Dean's own hair, combing wasn't something he forgot about.

"Why don't you pat the bunny, Cas," Dean suggested, green eyes dancing. His lips twitched like he was holding back a smile. Lily wasn't quite sure what was so funny, but his expression was contagious.

Cas walked robotically over to her and stroked the rabbit twice, his serious expression morphing to wonder at the feel of the soft fur, and back again as he seemed to regain control of himself. "Dean wishes to stroke your rabbit," he informed her.

Lily turned the rabbit over into Dean's large, rough, and surprisingly gentle hands, and turned back to Sam to check if there was any information she needed to know about his son before they left.

"He's very imaginative," Sam replied to her inquiries, "And he had a, er, very unusual upbringing before we adopted him. He might behave a little oddly."

Lily glanced over to where Cas was standing with Dean, who was clearly his favourite Dad, closely examining the rabbit hutch. They were paying a lot of attention to the broken latch, and Dean was absentmindedly stroking Flopsy, who was curled up against his ribs, apparently asleep in the crook of his arm. "He seems like a very nice little boy. I'm sure he'll be playing with the other kids in no time."

"Hopefully. Do you mind if I ask what happened here?" Sam gestured to the trashed art station.

"Um. Escaped rabbit," Lily squeaked out. You couldn't really tell a parent who was already worried about leaving their child that there might be a ghost in the classroom.

"Wow," Sam raised his eyebrows, "Athletic rabbit."

They were interrupted by a strange, high pitched wailing. Lily turned to see Flopsy hopping agitatedly around her cage, now tied shut with string, and Dean shoving something into his pocket. He waved his hand apologetically. "Sorry, phone." He came back over, Cas following closely behind him.

The first of the students were beginning to arrive for the day, so Lily had to get moving. "Why don't you hang your bag up, Cas, and then you can say goodbye to your Dads, and I'll introduce you to some of the other kids. Who's this on your bag?"

"I believe his name is Thomas," Cas answered, sounding wholly uninterested in his Thomas the Tank Engine backpack, and looking at it like he wasn't quite sure what it was for. He watched her in seeming annoyance as she hung his bag up for him. It was starting to get a little unnerving, but she ignored the feeling.

After Cas had parted from his Dads with the unemotional words "I still think this is unnecessary, Dean," and gone to stand by the rabbit hutch, staring at Flopsy, Dean smiled at Lily. "We're new in town and don't really know our way around. You wouldn't know anyone who could show us around today, would you?"

Lily gave them Robin's number, because they were so nice and Robin was free all day. A momentary stab of guilt passed through her as she gave the two incredibly hot guys the number of the woman Barney was in love with. Then she remembered they were gay, and felt better.

She went back into the classroom to begin her class, and waited eagerly for the lunch break, when Marshall would come and they could investigate the ghost.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

Robin met the guys Lily had given her number to at a small diner not far from the station. She recognised them from the graphic description Lily had supplied when Robin had rung to check they were for real. Lily was right. They were stunning. And they looked like real men, in jeans and flannel. She bet they'd been in a fight or too in their time. They probably had scars… She crossed the room to where they sat on opposite sides of a red vinyl booth, empty plates before them.

"Sam and Dean?"

The one on the right smiled at her pleasantly and extended a hand. "You must be Robin. I'm Sam, this is my –"

Robin glanced at the other one, who seemed frozen in place. Then his face broke into a wide grin, revealing perfect white teeth and crinkles at the corners of his eyes. "You're the hot chick from 'Come on, get up New York!'"

In her excitement over being recognised, Robin nearly missed the swift kick in the shin and tight-lipped expression he received from the man across the table. "You actually watch the show? I mean it's great to meet a fan," she tried to stop herself sounding surprised. She reached into her bag for a pen, just in case he wanted an autograph.

"Everyday," said Dean, casting a flirtatious glance at her, "And if you don't mind me saying, the camera does you no justice."

Robin opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Sam. "Why don't you sit down, Robin?" He suggested tightly, gesturing at the empty spot next to him. "As I was saying, I'm Sam McCready and this is my _husband_ Dean." He shot another pointed look at the man across from him. Dean's smirk dropped away to a slight pout, like a child denied a toy because he'd already picked something else. "We're new in town, and we're not really used to the big city. We thought maybe you could show us around?" Sam continued.

Robin put away her pen and slid into the seat next to Sam, pushing down the disappointment at her show being dismissed so quickly. Sam must have seen something in her face, because he said: "Love the show by the way. We watched it this morning."

Dean chimed back in, his grin reappearing. "Sammy just loved the interview with the woman who makes those handmade dolls – he's a collector, you know."

Huh. Robin glanced sideways at Sam. She hadn't thought anybody actually collected those horrific dolls. And he looked so masculine.

Sam's smile was somewhat forced as he agreed. "I thought you asked very pertinent questions."

"We watched on Friday, too," Dean continued. "It was the weirdest thing when we took Cas to his new school, and there was the woman you'd interviewed the other day. Total coincidence."

"Oh wow, you saw Lily and Marshall's interview?" Holy crap, they had _actually_ watched her show more than once.

"Yeah, about that," said Sam. "I mean, she seemed fine at the school, but…"

"Basically, we want to know if she's a crazy person," Dean finished. "Uh, Cas is very… delicate… we just want to make sure he'll be okay."

Well, she couldn't blame them really. Lily had been talking about a ghost. And wearing her pyjamas. "Lily's not crazy," Robin assured them, "Your son will be fine. She's great with kids. She's just got a vivid imagination."

"So you don't believe there's a ghost in her classroom?"

Robin laughed. "Of course not. Ghosts aren't real. What, are you crazy?"

Some kind of look passed between the men then, but, much in the same way as Lily and Marshall's psychic silent communication did, its meaning bypassed her.

"But it wasn't completely made up for TV, was it? I mean, something made her imagine the ghost," Sam pressed.

"She said something about colouring pencils being thrown across the room and sudden drops in temperature. It was all in the interview," Robin frowned. For people who supposedly wanted to see the city, they sure were sitting around asking a whole lot of weird questions.

"So none of that was exaggerated to make more exciting TV?" Dean asked, taking a last swallow of his black coffee.

Robin bristled at the slight on her journalistic integrity. "Did you just want to ask questions about Lily all day, or do you actually want to see the city? Because if you just came to ask about Lily, that's kind of creepy. She's perfectly sane, and she's not a liar. Something's wrong with the air conditioning and she thinks it's a ghost. That's it."

Sometimes Robin was a bit ashamed of the deep and gleeful satisfaction she felt at seeing grown men quail before her.

"Sorry, we just want to make sure our little angel is in good hands," Dean held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

"Dean's very overprotective," Sam coughed to cover a smile, "Just one more thing – who does she think it's the ghost of?"

"She doesn't know," Robin told them, sliding out of the booth and surreptitiously checking her hair in the window. "Now, do you want to see New York?"

The day improved from there. She showed them all of her favourite places, pointed out the deli that sold the best food and the one that would result in hours of unrelenting upchucking, and the best place to watch hockey on the big screen. They relaxed their questioning about Lily's 'ghost', but still seemed troubled. Dean hid it well, keeping up a constant flow of friendly, unthreatening flirtation, but when he thought nobody was watching the smile dropped away, leaving him looking tired and sad. Sam was polite, listening to her and asking all the right questions in a way that made her feel valued and intelligent. He apologised when he walked into people and kept looking over at Dean with a variety of expressions, from jealous glares when Dean's flirting became too obvious to barely concealed concern when his husband started looking tense. Occasionally they would drop back and have a quick, whispered conversation, standing very close together and parting with a quick pat on the shoulder or back. They really were a cute couple, and seemed to genuinely care about each other. She wasn't sure if she was disappointed or not.

Yes, they were a cute couple. But the whole time she was with them, she couldn't shake the feeling she was missing something.

* * *

There was something weird about the new kid in Lily's class. And not just normal five-year-old weird, either. He spoke like an adult (and quite a pretentious one at that) and was apparently fascinated by Flopsy to the point of continuing to stand a foot away from the rabbit hutch, staring creepily at it after school had started.

Lily crouched beside the tiny boy. "I know this is all new, but it's time to come and sit down. We're doing some reading. It'll be lots of fun!" She smiled widely at him. He acknowledged her by turning his head to stare expressionlessly at her before returning his gaze to the rabbit hutch, a small frown on his face. "Come on, reading time," Lily placed her hands on his shoulders to turn him around and steer him in the direction of group three. He was surprisingly sturdy for such a small boy, but he seemed to take the hint, walking over to his group with only one quick look back at the rabbit hutch.

Lily shook her hands to try to get the weird staticky feeling out and followed him to the table where group three was sitting, practicing reading books with brightly coloured pictures and few words. They slowly sounded out the words, fingers keeping places, and looked up at Lily as she passed for approval or help.

Cas sat stiffly in one of the colourful chairs, his back straight and his knees together. Lily searched quickly through the box of books on the table for the one she wanted. She handed the thin book to Cas. "Here you go honey. You like bunnies, don't you. Why don't you show me your reading?"

Cas looked at her with a puzzled expression and began to flip through 'A Home for a Bunny'.

"Can you read it out to me?" Lily requested, wanting to judge his reading ability

Cas briefly looked up to the sky, clearly asking God for deliverance from stupid people, and began to read. " _In the spring, a bunny came down the road…_ "

Lily stared as he continued to read. There was definitely something weird about this kid, and it wasn't just her imagination. It was freaking her out almost as much as the ghost had. Cas read in an even monotone, every word clearly enunciated. His body remained completely still except for his eyes and mouth as he read. He didn't stumble over a single word, and barely paused as he turned the pages. Lily knew adults who couldn't read out loud that well. The feeling that Cas was not a normal five-year-old intensified.

"What is the point of this book?" The small boy asked in a tone that was half impatience and half genuine curiosity. "It has a very weak basis in reality and misinforms readers about the rabbit's ability to form coherent thought."

Lily blinked, her mouth opening and closing like a fish's as she searched for a reply. "It's a story. It's just for fun," she replied when she found her voice, "Don't you read stories at home?"

Cas's brow crinkled as he thought about it. "I occasionally read the Winchester Gospels," he stated. Lily had never even heard of the Winchester Gospels. True, she wasn't all that religious, but still, she thought she would have heard of them. She was starting to think that the boy's upbringing was even more unusual than Sam had suggested. Like, religious cult unusual.

Cas paused, deep in thought, and then he said: "Dean had a book about an elephant named Babar."

Lily didn't know what to say to that, so she clapped her hands and called cheerily to the class: "Art time! Who wants to do some colouring?"

It wasn't just the reading, either. Cas didn't get any less strange over the course of the day. During art time, he sat bolt upright on his tiny green chair. For some reason, the chair seemed too small for him, despite the fact that his body fit on it perfectly. He watched, motionless and expressionless as the other children drew messy rainbows and flowers and decapitated people (she made a note to call James's parents). It wasn't that he _couldn't_ draw. Lily had a feeling that if he tried, he would draw every bit as neatly and precisely as he had read. It was more like he didn't understand what the point was and there were much more important things he could be doing with his time.

When lunch rolled around, Cas wouldn't leave the classroom, despite all of Lily's coaxing and encouragement to get him to play with the others. When Marshall arrived, she got Cas's dinosaur lunchbox out of his Thomas the Tank-engine bag, handing it to him with a firm instruction to eat his lunch outside. Sometimes she had to be firm with the clingy ones, even if it broke her heart. She closed the door behind him and turned to Marshall.

Marshall held out the ghost-facing kit. "Any sign of the ghost today?"

Lily shook her head. "But it caused some destruction over the weekend. Flopsy's cage got broken and the art corner was a mess this morning."

"Okay," said Marshall, setting the ghost-facing kit on Lily's desk and pulling out the instructions. "The first thing we have to do is figure out who the ghost is. There's a checklist." He sat down on a miniscule blue chair. It creaked ominously under his weight. "Has anyone died here recently?"

"Marshall, this is a kindergarten classroom."

"So that's a no?" Marshall made a mark on his list with a purple crayon. "How about a family member or someone close to the person witnessing the ghostly activity?"

"I think we would know if one of my family members died."

"No again," Marshall made another mark. "Any possibility that a visitor to the haunted area is involved in witchcraft or the binding of spirits?"

"Again, this is a kindergarten classroom. Although the new kid is a little scary…"

They continued through the list up to the final item: "Is the haunted area the site of animal sacrifices of any kind?"

Marshall looked up. "According to this, there is no ghost."

"Was there a previous rabbit?" A voice asked from behind Lily. She jumped, squeaking, and clutched a hand to her hammering heart.

"How did you get in here?" She asked; her voice turned high-pitched by fright. She turned to look at the blue-eyed five-year-old. He was in the same position he had occupied that morning, peering closely at the rabbit hutch. The dinosaur lunchbox was still clutched firmly in his left hand, shiny and unmarked like it had never been opened. His hair was even more untidily wild than it had been that morning, almost like he had been out in a strong wind. Lily peered out the window. The sky was overcast, but the large oak tree outside her classroom was completely unruffled by any breath of wind.

"Flopsy is not the first rabbit to live in this cage, is she?" Cas asked intensely, as though it was vitally important.

"Of course she is," Lily assured the little boy with an overly cheerful smile, "Now, it's time to go outside again." Kids generally didn't respond well to rabbits dying, which was why Flopsy had been replaced with the very similar Flopsy two, and subsequently with Flopsy the third.

"Do not lie to me, Lily," Cas fixed her with a glare, looking her straight in the eye. Lily suddenly felt very small. She suddenly couldn't wait for Dean and Sam to pick up their child.

Cas continued to stare at her just long enough to make her feel like he could read her thoughts before returning to the green chair he had been sitting in that morning. He had just sat down, perched uncomfortably, when the bell rang to call the children back in. It was almost like he'd predicted it.

Marshall left with a promise to think about who the ghost could be, and the kids filed reluctantly back into the classroom for their math lesson. Cas's gaze followed Lily unblinkingly, leaving her with the feeling of being judged and found wanting by someone far more powerful than a kindergarten kid. The end of the school day couldn't come fast enough.

* * *

**AN: 'A Home for a Bunny' was written by Margaret Wise Brown. It's fantastic.**


	3. Chapter 3

Lily breathed a sigh of relief when the final bell rang, signalling the end of the school day. For one thing, she had made it through a whole day without the ghost attacking anyone. For another, the new kid's staring was really starting to unnerve her.

Most of the kids had filtered out and Lily was tidying her desk, ignoring the feeling of blue eyes boring into her back, when Sam and Dean arrived to pick up their son. Cas was sitting motionlessly on his tiny green chair, waiting for them, and apparently didn't need to blink. He stood up to greet his parents as they entered the classroom.

"Hello," the little boy said seriously. Lily breathed a little easier when he finally transferred his gaze from her to stare intensely at Dean. Interestingly, Sam was only afforded a brief glance before the whole of the child's attention was focussed on the man beside him.

"Hey, Feathers. How was school, buddy?" The expression of poorly contained amusement that had been all over Dean's face that morning was back. He grinned widely at his son, who glared at him.

"I read a book about a rabbit," said Cas.

Lily saw an opportunity and took it. "Why don't you show your Daddy the book while I talk to your other Daddy?" She steered him gently towards the books.

"Dean and Sam are not my 'Daddies'," Cas growled at her. Oh dear. Maybe that was why he'd had such a difficult job adjusting to school. He'd only recently been adopted and hadn't fully settled into his new family yet. "I must speak with you, Dean. Come on."

Dean docilely followed the order, barely containing his laugh. Lily frowned. It didn't seem like he was taking parenting very seriously.

Lily returned to speak to Sam, craning her neck to look up at him as she spoke. "I'm sorry to tell you this, but your son appears to be having some social difficulties," she began.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Dean and Cas. They were seated at the table in the corner, Dean ridiculously huge in his miniscule red chair, Cas straight-backed and stiff in his green one. A thin book with colourful pictures was open on the table before them, but neither was looking at it. They were having a very serious conversation. The teasing laughter had disappeared from Dean's face. Lily couldn't hear what they were saying, but it didn't sound like a conversation between an adult and a child. In fact, if Lily hadn't been able to see that Cas was a child, and hear the pitch of a child in his voice, Lily would have thought it was two adults talking. She could just make out a few words every now and then. Words like _vengeful_ and _replacement_ and strangely, at one point, _salt_. She returned her attention to Sam, who was saying something about rabbits.

What was with this family and rabbits?

Lily didn't have to answer his question, which was something incredibly freaky and weird about what she did with class pets if they accidentally died. Unfortunately, it was because there was a sudden drop in temperature inside the classroom, like a gust of frigid air. Lily's heart sped up, her breath beginning to come in fast, sharp puffs of white mist. Before she could find the words to warn them about the ghost, Sam was manhandling her under a table in a way that was both perplexing and insulting, and ordering her to stay there.

Somewhere on the other side of the room and above Lily's head, there was the rush of wind as something flew across the room at speed, and a _thud-crunch_ as it landed on something hard enough to break it. Lily couldn't see anything because the table Sam had so heroically shoved her under was made for five-year-olds and consequently so low to the ground it was impossible to get a good angle to see from. She snaked forward on her belly, peering out just in time to see Dean throw himself sideways to avoid a pair of plastic lefty scissors as they hurtled through the air and lodged themselves in the wall behind the rabbit hutch.

A shape was flickering in mid-air over the art station in the corner, partially hidden from Lily's view by the leg of the table she was hiding under and the box of paints that was now balanced precariously on the edge of the paint-speckled counter. She craned her neck for a better look. The shape was roughly the size of her head, grey and transparent, flickering like a TV in an electric storm. She gasped. Could it be? She wriggled out from under the table, wincing as her head hit the wooden tabletop. She stood up, turning to look at the art station. It was.

The box of paints jerked violently, teetering on the edge. Stilled. Jerked again. Then it was flying through the air, hurled by an unseen force as the transparent figure flickered angrily above the other side of the art station. The box rolled in the air, paint bottles spilling from its open top and continuing to speed across the room. Lily ducked as one dipped suddenly above her, the lid coming off the bottle. Red paint splashed wetly on her, matting her hair and totally ruining her new Prada shirt. The paint box thudded to the ground three-quarters of the way across the room, like the force that had been supporting it couldn't sustain its weight anymore, but the paint bottles carried on, smashing hard into a table that Sam and Dean had turned on its side in front of the rabbit hutch while Lily had been watching the art station. Some of the plastic bottles burst as they hit the tabletop, leaving colourful splotches on the yellow.

Dean's head appeared above the edge of the table. "That is one pissed off bunny."

"No kidding, Dean. Now grab the rabbit and let's get out of here." Sam's head and shoulders appeared beside his brother's.

"The ghost is not yet strong enough to prevent us from leaving, but it is becoming strong at a much faster rate than human ghosts," their son's voice came from where he was hidden from view by the upturned table.

Lily watched nervously as a pair of scissors danced beside the ghost of Flopsy. Or it might have been Flopsy Two. They did look similar enough to fool five-year-olds, and any distinguishing features were erased by the flickering transparency.

"Come on," Sam grabbed her by the elbow, pulling her to the doorway.

Cas was already in the doorway, as calm and expressionless as he had been during art time. Dean was beside him, swearing violently as he attempted to hold on to the struggling, frightened form of Flopsy the third without crushing her.

"Wait," said Lily, as Sam pushed her out the door. The scissors she had seen moving picked themselves up and stabbed hard into the roof of Flopsy's sleeping box. The door slammed shut, blocking off the view of the classroom. "Maybe we can talk it down? My ghost-facing kit has instructions. I have to call my husband. He won't want to miss this." Somehow it was easier to get excited about the ghost when she was no longer in danger of being stabbed in the eye with a paintbrush.

"The rabbit's capacity for language is not sophisticated enough to understand the concepts we need to communicate with it," Cas frowned at Lily. She stared at him.

"Ah! Shi- I mean ouch," Dean glanced across at Lily, censoring himself for her benefit, "Little bastard's got some powerful back legs." He wrestled with the rabbit for a moment, trapping it against his ribcage. "Shh, Flopsy… it's okay," he rested a large hand on the rabbit's back, comforting it and holding it still at once. "There isn't another cage is there?"

"Inside," Lily told him weakly. Everything was suddenly seeming very surreal. Much more so than when she had actually been able to see the ghost. "It's behind my desk. I can get it." She turned to go back into the room, pausing as a faint crashing sound reached her ears.

"Thanks Cas," said Dean.

Lily turned back to see what he was thanking him for. The tiny boy was standing beside his Dad, holding open the small wire travel cage with the blue plastic base that Lily kept behind her desk. Dean was lowering the trembling but no-longer-struggling Flopsy into it.

Lily revised her opinion on Cas from raised in a religious cult to not human. Or maybe she was just going crazy. She struggled to breathe, suddenly feeling light-headed. She had to call Marshall. She had to call him right now.

"Hey, hey," Sam was beside her, gently lowering her to the ground, "Just sit there and put your head between your knees for a minute. You're alright."

From a long way away, Lily could hear Dean's gruff voice saying: "She just saw a ghost rabbit. She can't be that freaked by Cas zapping somewhere."

Then Sam's voice, a little closer: "Our lives are weird, man. I'm pretty sure you'd freak if you saw someone you thought was a normal kindergarten kid disappear and reappear out of nowhere."

"But she can't have actually thought Cas was a five-year-old. He sucks at pretending to be a kid."

"Dean, concentrate," the not-really-a-five-year-old ordered sternly, "I have greater concerns than this. We need to finish this now."

Lily looked up, slightly fuzzy-eyed with shock. Yes, they were still there.

"Well you suck at pretending to be married to me," Sam retorted, before crouching down beside Lily. "Lily? Are you with me?" Lily nodded. "We need to know what happened to the body of the rabbit that died in your classroom recently. The one that lived where the art station is now."

Lily thought for a moment. Flopsy Two's cage had been in that corner before she had rearranged her classroom. Flopsy Two had been a grey, floppy-eared rabbit almost identical to Flopsy three, except male. He'd suffered an unfortunate squashing incident when Suzie and James had been playing with him without her permission at recess. Lily had taken him to 'the vet' and replaced him with one the same from the pet shop so no-one would know that a) the class bunny had died and b) Lily had let the class bunny get squashed while she was on the phone to Marshall. "I took him to the pet cemetery," she said, "Jackson's Final Resting Place for Beloved Pets."

"What name is he buried under?"

"Flopsy."

Dean groaned. "Awesome. Do you know how many rabbits are called Flopsy? Freakin' Beatrix Potter… What?"

"Nothing," Sam shook his head, turning back to Lily. "Are you alright here? Can you call someone to come get you? We'll take care of this tonight. Your classroom will be fine by tomorrow morning."

"Flopsy's gonna need some food and stuff," Dean added, setting the cage down beside her, "And you need to put some newspaper or something in her cage. She was scared, so she pissed everywhere." And then as an afterthought, "Everything's going to be fine. It's just a rabbit. There's way worse stuff it could have been."

Lily wasn't sure she was comforted by that. She watched the McCreadys' retreating backs (was that even their name? She wasn't sure of anything anymore.), until they were out of sight. She quickly checked on Flopsy, who was curled in a ball in the corner of her cage, but seemed to be recovering. Satisfied for the moment, she pulled out her phone to get Marshall to pick her up.

By the time her husband got there, the shock was wearing off, and Lily was damned if she was going to let those three mysterious people get away without seeing what they were going to do that night.

"Call everyone," she told Marshall, "This mission's going to take us all."

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

Lily waited in their booth for her friends to arrive at the bar. Now, with Marshall's arm around her and a few hours between her and the ghost attack, her shock was fading and her excitement was growing. She sipped her wine and ordered burgers for the whole group so they wouldn't waste two hours deciding on dinner. Beside her, Marshall was going through the contents of the ghost-facing kit yet again. They'd left Flopsy the third up in the apartment in her freshly newspapered cage, recovering from her ordeal by nibbling ferociously at a carrot.

Robin was the first to arrive, bursting with curiosity about the mission Lily had called her in for. "It's about Sam and Dean, right? I knew there was something weird about them. You know, I think Dean was kind of into me… Do you think –"

"He's gay, Robin," Marshall reminded her. A vague memory of Sam's voice reaching Lily through the fog of shock, telling Dean he sucked at pretending to be his husband hit Lily. She hadn't really thought about it at the time, but now that she thought about it, it did seem like Robin had a chance.

"You think I couldn't turn a gay guy straight?" Robin asked indignantly, sliding into the booth.

"You could turn me straight," Barney said smoothly as he walked up. Everyone turned to look curiously at him. "Automatic reaction," he explained, sliding in next to Robin and concentrating hard on his scotch.

Ted turned up not much later, taking the chair at the end of the booth and leaning forward to look at Lily in concern. "What happened, Lily?" He asked. "You sounded awful on the phone."

"The ghost in my classroom is real," Lily announced, fortifying herself with a gulp of wine.

Robin, Ted and Barney all spoke at once, a jumble of exclamations of disbelief concerned inquiries about whether she'd been eating Mexican again.

Marshall spoke over them: "Let the woman talk!"

A tingle of warmness passed through Lily at her husband's determination to let her be heard. Her friends fell quiet as she told them all about the strange inhumanity of the new little boy in her class and the ghost of Flopsy Two hurling things across the room, and the mysterious Sam and Dean, who weren't really married and had known what to do about the ghost rabbit.

"I knew they weren't together!" Robin exclaimed, fist-pumping under the table.

At the same time, Barney laughed. "There's no ghost, Lily. It's simply an elaborate ploy to get into your pants. 'The Ghostbusters': It's the oldest trick in the book."

Everyone looked at him expectantly. There was no stopping Barney when he got on a roll like this. It was better just to wait it out.

Barney paused dramatically before continuing. "Or to be more exact, trick number forty-one in the playbook. Step one: A handsome man overhears a hot chick talking about a ghost. Enlisting the help of up to twelve bros, he 'haunts' her place of work, while simultaneously becoming an unthreatening figure in the hot chick's life by pretending to be married and attempting to become 'friends' with her. In this case, Lily is the hot chick, and this 'Dean' guy has performed the triple whammy of pretending to be married, gay, and a father in order to lull Lily into a false sense of security. With the help of the gifted child actor he hired to pretend to be his son, he sets up the false haunting of the classroom while his wingman distracts the hot chick. Then, the final step: he saves her from the violent and terrifying ghost by pretending to be a badass professional ghostbuster and protecting her with his body. He then 'deals with' the ghost, and the hot chick is so grateful and impressed with his badassery that she throws herself into his arms and bangs him like a wildcat."

"Wait, how do you know it wasn't Sam who set it up? He is the one that talked to Lily the most, after all." Robin sounded a little put out.

"You've done that? And it actually worked?" Ted asked, expressions of disgust and awe battling to take over his face.

"Oh, it worked all right. Repeatedly," Barney held his hand up for a high five. No one high fived him. He put it down reluctantly, and looked at Lily again. "I hate to break this to you Lily, but there is no ghost. It was just an elaborate ploy to get you to let Dean 'stroke your rabbit'."

There was a pause. "Is that even a real thing?" Ted asked.

"It is now," Barney said, "Innuendo high five!" He held his hand up again. This time Robin slapped it. Lily couldn't blame her, really.

"No," Marshall said loudly, stopping their friends before they got too distracted with the playbook and dirty puns, "If Lily saw a ghost, there was a ghost."

Wendy the waitress chose that moment to deliver their burgers. She doled them out, casting Marshall a strange look before departing with less-than-usual friendliness.

"And everyone has to join in the mission," he continued. He cut through their protests of having to go to work and having to pick up chicks by announcing: "I'm invoking the bro code! Now Lily, tell them the plan."

Lily told them the plan.

"So we're going to stand around in a pet cemetery, waiting for some guys to dig up a dead rabbit?" Ted asked.

"Yes," Lily said with finality. "Now, everyone eat your burgers. They didn't say what time they were going, and I don't want to miss anything."

* * *

"They're not coming, Lily," Robin complained, pulling her coat tighter around her, "You said there'd be pretty men digging things up."

"I can dig things up," said Barney with surprising eagerness, "I'll need someone to hold my coat though. It's Versace." He began to unbutton his thick black coat.

"Wait," Lily slapped Barney's hands down and peered out from around the tree they were hiding behind, "Someone's coming."

Three silhouetted figures were winding between the miniature gravestones and tidily trimmed rose bushes. The two larger figures were running the beams of their flashlights across the headstones. Lily could just make out something that might have been a shovel over the shorter one's shoulder (that one must be Dean, she deduced), and what looked unnervingly like a gun in the biggest one's hand. The third figure came up to Dean's hips and appeared to be completely unarmed. Lily wasn't sure if she would have been more freaked out if he'd had a weapon or not, but the fact that he didn't cemented her belief that he wasn't human.

Marshall nudged her. "I finished the salt line. I had to go all the way around the tree." Marshall was adorably excited about being able to use his ghost-facing kit. They'd had to stop on the way to pick up a bulk supply of salt on their way to the cemetery. Lily privately thought they would probably be far enough away from the action that it wouldn't matter if they were in a salt line or not, but it made Marshall happy and she was sure she could find a use for the leftovers.

"Dammit, that's the fifth Flopsy so far," Lily recognised Dean's growling voice, "Why can't people be more original with their naming? Oh look, another cat called Fluffy."

"Well, what would you call your cat, Dean?" Sam sounded amused.

"I don't have a name picked out for my imaginary pet cat, Sam. Some of us here aren't twelve."

"It's Han Solo," the childish voice of Cas piped up from behind a rose bush.

Lily missed Sam's reply because Marshall, Ted and Barney were exploding with excitement at the awesome taste in movies of someone who was either a badass ghostbuster (Marshall's view) or a legendary pick-up artist (Barney).

"This one says 'Flopsy was a nice rabbit, from room twelve,'" Dean said.

"The ghost was in room two, Dean. Anyway, the kids didn't know Flopsy Two was dead, so they can't have written a message."

"Why didn't you get a better description of where he was buried?"

"Why didn't you?"

Lily lost patience and stood up, ignoring Marshall's efforts to keep her inside the salt circle. She stepped out from behind the tree and began winding her way over to the men, to inform them they were way over on the wrong side of the cemetery. Marshall followed her, looming beside her with a flashlight in one hand and the weird electronic thing the ghost-facing kit had called an EMF meter in the other. Ted followed because he was the third part of the tricycle, Robin followed in order to get a closer look at the men, and Barney followed – well, Lily didn't really know why. She suspected it was to impress Robin.

Sam and Dean froze at the sight of five people striding across the graveyard towards them. "Ah – this isn't what it looks like?" Sam said quickly, attempting to hide the sawn-off shotgun in his hand behind his back.

"Then you haven't come to dig up and burn the bones of a rabbit to get rid of the ghost in Lily's classroom?" Marshall asked.

"Can I see your gun?" Robin asked flirtatiously.

"I have a gun!" Barney practically shouted.

Robin cast her gaze towards him speculatively. "Really?"

"Well, I'm thinking of getting one," Barney tore his gaze away from Robin for the first time to look over the Ghostbusters. He spluttered angrily. "You – You're James Bond! You – I – Vengeance will be mine!"

"Uh, right," said Dean, "You're kind of nuts, you know that?"

"I do not have time for this," Cas informed them in a no-nonsense tone that suddenly made Lily feel very small. "Direct us to the grave of the rabbit immediately."

Even Barney shut up for a second, although Lily could practically feel the glare he was directing towards Dean.

"That's actually what I came over here for," Lily told them, "Follow me." She led the way across the graveyard to a headstone not far from the tree they had been hiding behind.

Once they were at the correct grave, Dean ordered them out of the way in the same decisive way that Sam had shoved Lily under the desk in the classroom. When nobody moved, he explained: "We don't want anyone to get hurt. It might just be a dead rabbit, but it's a really pissed off dead rabbit."

"But I brought my ghost-facing kit!" Marshall protested.

"I'm not leaving until I know my class is safe," Lily added.

"I don't believe there is a ghost," Barney continued to glare at Dean.

"This is the first interesting thing to happen to me all year," was Ted's contribution.

"I can shoot it," said Robin, "I don't really believe in ghosts, but I really want to use your sawed-off."

Sam and Dean both looked over at Robin, momentarily distracted.

"Dean. Concentrate." Cas was beginning to sound annoyed. Dean shook himself.

In the finish, Sam shooed them back to the salt circle, telling them they could watch from there if they had to, but they were not to leave it under any circumstances. Lily accepted the terms, but added an escape clause in her head that replaced _under any circumstances_ with _unless something really cool is happening_ , and added the stipulation that they had to let Marshall film it.

Lily watched as Dean handed his flashlight to Cas, and stabbed the tip of his shovel into the hard ground, beginning to dig. Lily momentarily lost herself in a dream about his muscles rippling under his coat. She came to just as Dean was saying: "That was so much easier than a human grave. We should specialise in animals." Then he was flying backwards, releasing an involuntary gasp of pain as he landed across three foot-high headstones.

"Oh my God," Robin, Barney and Ted shouted in unison behind Lily.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean growled, rolling to his feet, "Let's kill this little bastard! Where is it?"

"It's behind you!" Marshall shouted, pointing behind Dean. Lily followed his finger, but saw nothing. "It's on the camera," He insisted, directing Lily's attention to the viewing window of the ghost-facing camera. Sure enough, lurking in midair behind Dean's head was a slightly green, semi-transparent rabbit.

Dean whipped around just as the ghost flickered back into sight. "Shoot it!" He shouted, diving for the ground as a handful of stones ripped themselves out of the ground and pelted towards him. Suddenly, Cas was there, so fast Lily didn't see him move, blocking Dean's head with his tiny body and showing no pain as the stones hit him. Sam's shotgun blasted, whatever was in it ripping through the apparition's non-corporeal body until it disappeared. Dean scrambled up and dashed across to the tiny grave. Reaching it, he grabbed some kind of can that Sam had left beside the grave and tipped its liquid contents over the body in the grave. He reached into his pocket and came up empty handed. He swore loudly. "My lighter's gone!" And then: "Sam!"

The ghost had reappeared and had somehow pinned Sam to the ground, digging into his neck with powerful back legs. Cas was there too, holding the dead rabbit back with some kind of force, a strange white light emitting from where his hands touched the ghost.

"Move, Cas!" Dean cried, kneeling to get a good angle with the shotgun he'd lost when the spirit had thrown him the first time.

"Someone needs to light those bones," Lily announced. "Who has their lighter?"

In the end, after a small struggle, it was Robin who sprinted across and dropped her flaming lighter into the open grave, sending the bones up in a rush of flame just as Dean fired across Sam's chest at the angry bunny. As the spirit moved on in a burst of flame, it released Sam and he reflexively sat up slightly, just in time to be winged by a spray of rock salt from Dean's gun.

Lily, Marshall, Ted and Barney went over to join Robin at the burning grave. Marshall still had the video camera in his hand and was excitedly talking about sending it in to the ghostfacers website when Sam, Dean and Cas came over.

"So your room should be okay now," Sam told Lily, wheezing slightly and clutching his ribs.

"Let me look at that, man. Sorry, I know how much that crap hurts," Dean was too concerned about Sam to give anyone else any attention.

"It's okay dude, it's not your fault." Sam winced, "Did I ever apologise for that time I shot you in the chest with this stuff?"

"We're good, Sam," Dean said dismissively, "We should go."

"Just a second," Lily demanded, "What is Cas? I know he's not human. What are the other things out there we should be worried about? And why were you here? "

" What I am is no concern of yours," Cas said sternly, "And we were here largely because Dean found it amusing. Also, because he thinks you look like the 'hot witch' in _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_." The air around him fizzed with electricity. The screen of the video camera in Marshall's hand turned to silver snow and then to black.

"So you guys aren't really married, then?" Robin looked at Dean hopefully.

"We're brothers," Sam explained.

"We should go fix you up, Sammy," Dean said, steering his brother away. "You guys should probably go too. Someone might have seen the fire." And with that, the three of them left without looking back. Lily had a funny feeling the newest member of her class wouldn't be coming back.

"What just happened?" Ted asked dazedly.

"You just got a new story to tell your kids someday," Lily told him.

"I'm not married," Barney told Robin, still stuck on the things that really mattered.

* * *

The End


End file.
